Ronald Reagan: More on His Legacy

Maybe one of the biggest and most lasting parts of Reagan's legacy is that he made many Americans believe that government is evil—though this idea may in fact be deeply rooted in the American consciousness; one only has to look at the Declaration of Independence.

He persuaded us to make him head of that which he despised, namely the government. Evidently it didn't occur to anyone—least of all Reagan himself—that there was an irony there.

He tried to gut, undermine, and render powerless regulatory agencies such as the EPA and the FDA by cutting funding and causing staff cuts. Some of these agencies are still not restored to the funding or staffing that they need: thus Reagan's legacy lives on.

(These regulatory agencies protect consumers. Republicans--Reagan and more recent ones--argue that anything that impedes business is bad for all of us. So the argument comes down to this: Who do you trust to be on your side--"you" meaning the average Joe--corporations or the government? People mistrust the government but, to my mind, we've had plenty of cases of greedy, even evil and corrupt corporations. And, think of this: We don't elect corporations, so how do you expect them to be accountable, if they are free of all restrictions?)

It may well be due to Reagan that many people today feel that the government takes away their money—which they have earned and are thus entitled to keep—to give to people who don't want to work. (There is more than a hint of racism in this idea; I remember well Reagan's campaign speeches, which to me at least clearly included an appeal to racism. But you only have to look at photos or video clips--such as have appeared over and over—of job fairs that have been accessible to minorities, to see that there have been enormous, incredible, numbers of people willing to expend great amounts of time standing in long lines in hopes of getting a job.)

Further, to this type of thinking, this "redistribution of wealth"—that is, taxing their incomes--is outright socialism. Never mind that we have had an income tax for 150 years now, and the government's power to levy such a tax was confirmed by the Sixteenth Amendment 100 years ago.

Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein